ARA Rental Show – You made the investment, don’t lose the momentum

There was something magical about doing a walkabout on the floor of the recent ARA Rental Show and seeing the shiny paint on everyone’s newest offerings, especially if you appreciated the chance to spend quality time in Anaheim in February instead of record low temperatures in the northern latitudes.

For those of you who attended the show, it’s important to build on the momentum you gathered from talking to vendors and possible business partners. There is an amazing book we like by Jim Collins called Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… And Others Don’t. In the book, he utilizes the imagery of a flywheel to illustrate the idea of momentum in business. If you keep applying constant pressure, eventually the flywheel will gain self-sustaining momentum over time and you will find your business not only succeeding, but flourishing.

Find success with incremental improvements each day

The key to success in building momentum is to realize that it is incremental and consistent effort that will get you to the finish line. Too often, we are up for a sprint where we expand maximum effort for a short period of time. That might start up the flywheel but you’ll soon find yourself back where you started with no progress, if you don’t develop the discipline and processes you need to keep up a consistent effort. It doesn’t take much, just keep pushing and improving a bit every day, every week, every month, every year. Before you know it, you’ll become an overnight success.

Many of the people we talked to at our ARA Show booth were looking for equipment. Several were just starting up a business and some were apologetic that they weren’t very big yet. That comes with time. I can remember leaving a position as a senior manager with an international accounting firm to start up a computer consulting business, on my own, with five kids and a stay-at-home wife. After a couple of years I saw an internal email from one of our suppliers saying our business would never amount to much because we were so small. At that time, we had two staff.

After nearly 26 years we are an overnight success with 30 staff located in three countries, selling our products and services across the world. I only mention this story to encourage you, large or small, to identify the business principles you need to succeed and start or keep working on change and improvement.

If you are interested in owning the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, we will be giving away a copy to the first two people who contact us and mention this offer.

LEGO draw winner

We would also like to congratulate the winner of our annual LEGO draw: James Johansen from Ace Rental Center in Keene, New Hampshire. He has won a LEGO® Technic™ Mack LR Garbage Truck with over 2,590 pieces. This 2-in-1 advanced builder set can also be rebuilt into the Mack Anthem Truck model. Enjoy it, James!

Let’s talk about how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and ODT Rentals 365 can help you operate your business to create sustainable momentum. Please contact us for a no-pressure conversation about where you could go from here.

*Did you see our previous blog about how the full Business Central platform gives you the most advantages for your rental business, more so than hybrid options? Beware that just because someone says their app is on Business Central, doesn’t mean it is built for Business Central. Learn more here.